“But,” Larue was visibly shocked, “surely it would be easy for everyone to find this out simply by trying to talk to the crew? There would be a huge delay!”
“The change coincided with NASA cutting off our direct feed, which would have sorted us out. As for the others, a serious malfunction of the nanostations caused NASA to stop using them, which forced a policy change on communications. On top of that, the Clarke was already so far away by then that we weren’t having direct conversations with the crew anymore, it just wasn’t practical.”
“So how did you find out?”
“Jacqueline hacked into the direct feed for a short period, and before she was cut off by NASA, we managed to view the real footage alongside what the other agencies were being sent. The time delay is real, but they’ve upped their security since, and we haven’t been able to get back in.”
Larue was taken aback. He looked out of the window and thought carefully about the situation; none of his counterparts at the other agencies had communicated anything to him directly. On top of that, NASA had certainly not lodged a complaint with ESA for the low level hacking of the data feeds. He would leave that issue for another day. For the time being he would concentrate on the facts. “Can we prove this?”
“Unfortunately, we cannot,” Martín admitted. “I recorded the nanostation feeds that show the time difference, but since then the live footage has also been transmitted normally, so it proves nothing.”
“And you haven’t been able to access the live feeds since then?”
“No. Whatever encryption they’re using, it’s impossible to crack.” He looked at Larue, who was now staring at the backs of his hands on the desk. “We’ve tried several times,” he added helpfully.
Larue looked up from his desk and met Martín’s eyes, which contrary to his smile had lost none of the joy that they had shown when he had first entered the room several minutes before. “And you said that no one else knows this?”
“As far as we can tell, we are the only ones to have seen this.”
Larue looked out of the window again. “How about the Chinese? Their relationship with NASA is very strenuous at the moment, is it possible that they know too?”
“It’s very possible, Monsieur.”
Larue looked across and raised his eyebrow quizzically. “There’s something you haven’t told me, isn’t there?”
Martín hadn’t intended to tell Larue any of this, at least not until Beagle 4 was in place. He had agreed with Jacqueline that it was best to present him with good news rather than speculation. His good mood had certainly helped to break his silence, but he was now finding it a relief to tell his manager everything. “We know of one other person who found out about the time change.”
“Yes?”
“We believe that shortly before her death, Su Ning became aware of the difference. Somehow, she must have calculated the time on Earth. This alone wouldn’t have helped her, and we’ve been trawling video footage to find any clues, but the best guess we have is that she must have had access to a watch that showed Earth time with which to verify her calculations,” Martín said. He had started the sentence slowly, carefully, but as he had gone on he had found the words pouring out of their own accord. He stopped himself from saying more, and tried to gauge Larue’s response.
Larue sat silently for over a minute, before standing up and walking to the window. He looked down at the traffic below, congested behind a bin lorry collecting recyclables from the side of the road. A motorbike weaved its way through the lines of cars, narrowly avoiding a pedestrian reading a newspaper. He looked over at the UNESCO building. The familiar tops of the trees beckoned to him; he would definitely go for a walk today.
Turning round, he looked at Martín and frowned. “You should have told me all of this much sooner, Martin,” he said. He walked over to his desk and opened the top drawer again. Beside the small wooden box was a large plastic tub. He pulled it out and popped the lid, carefully pouring one pill into the palm of his hand. He clenched his fist around the pill and replaced the tub in the drawer before picking up a glass of water on his desk. He looked at Martín out of the corner of his eyes and titled his head back, taking the pill and water in one gulp.
He sat down at his desk once more, leaning back slowly and closing his eyes, his arms placed carefully on the armrests.
Martín waited for at least two minutes before speaking. “Monsieur,” he began, “I am sorry that I didn’t tell you this sooner; we wanted to be certain that –”
“I am not concerned with that, Martin,” Larue snapped. He did not move from his chair, his eyes remained closed. Of course, he was enraged that his employee had left him in the dark, but now he had to concentrate on what was happening on Mars. If it played out in his favour, this whole situation could be his saving grace. “You did well to find out what you did.”
“Then what is wrong?” To Martín, it was simple. The Americans were hiding information from their closest technological allies, and had probably caused Su Ning’s death to keep the fact secret. It was more of a conspiracy than even his boss could have hoped for.
Larue half opened his eyes and looked over at Martín. “If I understand you correctly, and you are right in what you say, which I have no doubt you are, then this is more than a simple rivalry between competing space agencies.” He paused, shifting his body up in the chair. “NASA would not simply carry out deception on such a scale for the fun of it. Placing this time difference between Clarke and Earth suggests that this is bigger than that.”
Martín leant forward. “So who could be responsible?”
“I do not know, Martin. But there’s one thing that is even more certain than the fact that NASA couldn’t be responsible for this.”
“Yes?”
“NASA would never intentionally kill an astronaut.”
Martín leant back and crossed his arms. “To hide the truth, they might,” he said.
Larue sat upright and laughed. “This isn’t Capricorn One, Martin! This is NASA! This is 2045, and the Clarke is a multinational mission to Mars! Why would anyone want to jeopardise our first manned mission?”
Martín had no idea. He looked at his shoes, as if the answer somehow lay in the criss-cross pattern of his laces.
“Which leads me to the most important question. The question that lies at the heart of this whole situation: what is there to hide? ”
“We have no idea, Monsieur. The feeds we have do not show anything revealing.”
“And they’re never likely to either!” Larue said in frustration. “They slipped up at the beginning, which is how you and Jacqueline were able to see this, and also why poor Su Ning lost her life. They are not likely to slip up again.” He looked out of the window again and his frown grew as he noticed dark clouds gathering on the horizon, ready to blot out the sun. “And until we know what they are hiding, or at least have some evidence, there is no way we can say anything to anyone. With what we have, we cannot tell anyone, Martin. Do you understand?”
Martín nodded slowly. “There is one more thing, Monsieur,” he said, “that may help us, and give us this proof.”
“What is that?” Larue had a wry smile on his face, as if he already knew what he was about to say.
Martín sat up straight and looked directly into Larue’s eyes. “We still have Beagle 4. While whoever it is controls the feed from Clarke, we have no hope of them slipping up again. But ESA controls the rover, which is equipped with high resolution cameras and microphones.”
“Our maximum resolution being?”
“Beagle can read a book from one kilometre,” Martín found himself grinning, “and can travel at roughly two hundred metres per hour. We can follow them pretty closely, and they should always be within sight as long as the atmosphere is clear. All we need is to hope that Beagle is still up to the task.”